John Morijn's inaugural lecture published in Polish and Hungarian newspapers

The text of Professor John Morijn's inaugural lecture was published almost in its entirety in Polish in the Polish newspaper OKO.press last weekend. An edited version of the text was also published in both English and Hungarian in the endangered Hungarian newspaper Telex. Morijn: 'With this, I have in fact achieved my main goal, namely to reach Poles and Hungarians directly with my message'.

From his full inaugural lecture text, the following passage is most important to Morijn:

Over the last years, I have often been asked whether it would not be better to remove Hungary and Poland from the EU. As a lawyer, my answer must be that this is impossible within the current setting. As a scholar focused on persons who make a difference in real life my rejection of that notion is more fundamental. Fellow EU citizens from Hungary and Polen, judges, activists, academics and journalists, and media platforms elsewhere that continue to put their plight in the spotlight, have done more than anyone to fight for the EU to remain true to its mission. How could we justify punishing them for something their governments do, and against which we have not sufficiently helped them push back?

This article was published by the Faculty of Law.